TORONTO \u2014 Toronto FC has signed veteran winger Derrick Etienne Jr. to a new contract through 2026 with club options for 2027 and 2027-28 (when Major League Soccer switches to a summer-to-spring schedule). <\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Haiti international, who made US$745,566 last season, was one of eight players whose 2026 contract options were declined by TFC in late October.<\/p>\n
Etienne appeared in 25 league games last season with 10 starts, including four of TFC\u2019s last five outings. He is a versatile attacker, able to play on the wing and further up front.<\/p>\n
Entering his 11th MLS season, Etienne joined Toronto in an April 2024 trade that netted Atlanta United up to US$375,000 in general allocation money. He has five goals and six assists in 55 appearances across all competitions with Toronto.<\/p>\n
A native of Richmond, Va., Etienne comes from a family with deep ties to Haiti football.<\/p>\n
His father, Derrick Sr., also played for the Haiti national team, as did uncle Darrell (Derrick Sr.\u2019s twin brother), while his sister Danielle, a midfielder, represented Haiti at the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
Derrick Jr. has won 45 caps for 84th-ranked Haiti, which qualified for the 2026 World Cup with a 2-0 victory over No. 132 Nicaragua in November. Haiti topped Group C, which also included No. 49 Costa Rica and No. 65 Honduras, in the third round of CONCACAF qualifying.<\/p>\n
Haiti\u2019s only other appearance at the men\u2019s soccer showcase was in 1974 when it lost to Italy, Poland and Argentina.<\/p>\n
Etienne signed with the New York Red Bulls as a homegrown player in December 2015 and went on to make 79 appearances across all competitions, with six goals and four assists, across four seasons (2016-2019). He made five appearances while on loan to FC Cincinnati in 2019.<\/p>\n
He joined the Columbus Crew in February 2020, with 12 goals and 14 assistants in 90 appearances across all competitions from through 2022. He scored a goal in the Crew\u2019s 3-1 win over the Seattle Sounders in the 2020 MLS Cup final and helped Columbus down Mexico\u2019s Cruz Azul to hoist the 2021 Campeones Cup. <\/p>\n
Etienne came to Atlanta in November 2022 as a free agent and went on to make 27 appearances across all competitions with two assists.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Toronto FC has signed veteran winger Derrick Etienne Jr. to a new contract through 2026 with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-394615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}